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Popular Science’s ‘Garage Invention’ Awards 2010: KOR-fx

‘Garage inventors’ is a term used to describe individuals or groups of inventors that create independently. They are not on a salary or salary/incentive basis, paid by their companies to invent; they work alone, on their own or in small groups, generally in someone’s garage or other part of the home.

Popular Science recognizes the accomplishments of these independent inventors yearly in the June issue of its magazine. Today, we take a look at KOR-fx.

A visiting physics professor at Rowan University, Shahriar S. Afshar is living in campus housing, which makes him subject to the bass vibrations from surrounding gamers’ rooms.

The interference made it pretty hard for Afshar to get his work done. An inventor since childhood, Afshar invented the KOR-fx as self protection.

The KOR-fx is a device that connects to gaming consoles, PCs, or music players. It sits around the shoulders, and the two transducers that lie on one’s chest translate stereo sound into stereo vibrations.

That way, gamers can feel complete immersion in their games without involving others who are not playing. “We can induce the sensation of rain, wind, weight shift, even G-forces,” he said. His company, Immerz, is in talks with several studios to add these effects to films.